Indian Wars or How the West Was Won

June 27, 2011 at 10:06 pm | Posted in Cactus, Canada, Garage Rock, Music, Paisley, Tumbleweed | 4 Comments
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When we last visited the Vancouver, BC garage scene the Dead Ghosts had just released their self-titled debut album that hinted at country and rockabilly but was mostly straight ahead garage. Indian Wars have just released their own debut and have upped the ante in the country garage sweepstakes. Sounding like a less paisley, more cactus and tumbleweeds Long Ryders these cowboys from British Columbia gallop through 13 songs on their debut entitled Walk Around the Park. It’s a dusty stampede of a record that will either have you replacing your garage door with swinging ones or just wholesale trading in your garage for a stable. Hee-haw!!!! Hope these guys ride down to Seattle one of these days, border crossings and barbed wire be damned, because when I saw them here last year at the Funhouse they proved they could bring it live as well.

mp3: Indian Wars – 8 Feet High (from Walk Around the Park)

In related news the Long Ryders just had their first album Native Sons re-issued and is well worth checking out, especially side one which doesn’t let up.

In geographically related news, another Vancouver band Manic Attracts which have ties to Dead Ghosts, Shimmering Stars, Time Copz and Chains Of Love have just released their first album Eyes Wide Shut and is recommended if you dug that Myelin Sheaths record from last year.

Ahoy! The Sea Thieves

June 16, 2011 at 7:12 am | Posted in Australia, Music | 1 Comment
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The Sea Thieves are from Adelaid, Australia. They make music that is lite as feather that floats into your consious on waves of ukele, classical guitar, and Zac Coligan’s precious voice. They have just released their second album on Big Rig Records entitled They Will Run. The Sea Thieves started as a duo consisting of Coligan and his wife Naomi Thompson, but have expanded their ranks on this new record. The band carves out its own little corner of  folk/chamber pop, with their delicate songs that sound like a more rustic Trembling Blue Stars, a sparser Crayon Fields, or a subtler Harry Nilsson. The Sea Thieves are a pleasant surprise from down under.

mp3: Sea Thieves – Starting At the End (from They Will Run)

Pricks in a Car: Useless Eaters’ Daily Commute

June 13, 2011 at 10:27 pm | Posted in Music, Punk Rock | Leave a comment
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The Useless Eaters have just put out one of the best punk albums of the year. Hopefully you didn’t miss it because of all the hubub around that prog band from Toronto. Useless Eaters are the brainchild of Seth Sutton, a comrade of Jay Reatard‘s (He accompanied Reatard on his final tour). The record is called Daily Commute and it is full of short sharp shocks in the vein of Wire‘s Pink Flag and early Damned (or for you youngsters, RIYL Tyvek). The riffs are jagged, and the songs stick in your head with their fist pumping, angst-filled choruses. Daily Commute has an obvious angular, English punk influence and sounds like it was recorded in a basement sometime in ’77 with tape hiss permeating the mix.  The previous Useless Eaters singles showed promise without quite delivering, this record delivers on the promise with every song being an intense punch in the face.

mp3: Useless Eaters – Daily Commute (from the album Daily Commute)

More Useless Eaters info:

Here’s a good interview with Seth Sutton from last year.

If you end up loving this record, be sure to check out the Useless Eaters compilation entitled Cheap Talk: The Singles which assembles all of their singles output and adds a handful of new songs too.

The Better Half: Basementcast #16

June 10, 2011 at 2:46 pm | Posted in Basementcast, Girls, Music, Podcasts | 5 Comments


Photo from Bob Carlos Clarke/Rex USA/Everett Collection

It’s been a while since the last one of these hit the internet. The Q1U has been burried under a stack of a records for the last few months. I was cleaning the basement the other day and uncovered it. Inspiration hit and a list of songs was assembled with an initial unintended musical slant . A little rejiggering, and it became an ode to the female of the species and my favorite basementcast yet. See what you think.

download: basementcast #16 (~165 Mb)

Las Kellies - Prince In Blue  from Kellies (Fire)
ESG - It’s Alright  from Come away with ESG (Soul Jazz)
No Joy - Indigo Child (Stereolab Remix) from Ghost Blonde (Mexican Summer)

Red Sleeping Beauty - The Trumpet Song from  Singles (Siesta)
The Chiffons - He’s So Fine  from Sweet Talkin’ Girls – The Best Of The Chiffons (EMI)
Laetitia Sadier - By the Sea  from The Trip (Drag City)

Wax Idols  - All Too Human (Hozac 7″)
Mocket - Bionic Parts  from Bionic Parts (Punk In My Vitamins)
Soul Swingers - Brighter Tomorrow  from Wheedle’s Groove – Seattle’s Finest in Funk & Soul 1965-75 (Light In the Attic)
P.S. Eliot - Sadie  from Sadie (Salinas)

Calligraphers - Let The Eyes Talk (Bandcamp)
Help Stamp Out Loneliness - Angelyne from Help Stamp Out Loneliness  (WIAIWYA)
Seapony - Always from Go With Me  (Hardly Art)

Xeno & Oaklander – Sentinelle from Sentinelle (Wierd)
Althea & Donna - Uptown Top Ranking  from Uptown Top Ranking (Frontline)
Amor De Dias - Bunhill Fields from  Street Of The Love Of Days (Merge)

Times New Viking - Fuck Her Tears  from Dancer Equired (Merge)
Molly O’Day & The Cumberland Mountain Folks - Poor Ellen Smith  from Columbia Country Classics Volume 1: The Golden Age (Columbia)
Dreamdate - Pyramids from Melody Walk (Tic Tac Totally)

Kids On A Crime Spree - Trumpets of Death  from We Love You So Bad (Slumberland)
Bake Sale - Meanwhile  from As Predicted 7″ (Grand Palace Records)
The Louche F.C. - Back Bedroom Casualty  (Sways 7″)

Posse - Sarah (Self-released)
Eleventh Dream Day - You Know What It Is from Lived To Tell  (Atlantic)

Saint Etienne - Kiss and Make Up from  Foxbase Alpha (Warner)
Cat’s Eyes - The Best Person I Know  from Cat’s Eyes  (Downtown)

Thee Oh Sees - I Won’t Hurt You from  Castlemania (In the Red)

Hell On Wheels

June 8, 2011 at 9:39 am | Posted in Music, Swedes, Back from the Dead | 2 Comments
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It’s been years since the last Hell On Wheels album. Previously they’ve been compared to the Pixies, but based on the two songs I’ve heard from their upcoming album One Ros (out 22nd June on Hybris) they’ve been hanging out with the Shout Out Louds (Baby) and Kurt Wagner (The Night).

mp3: Hell on Wheels – Baby

Now and Then and Fun Deficit

June 6, 2011 at 8:48 pm | Posted in Antique Glow, Music, time travel | Leave a comment
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There’s an interesting exhibit entitled Now and Then at the Seattle Museum of History and Industry that takes historical Seattle photos from the past and displays them next to a current day picture taken from the same location. It’s an exhibit that gives you a real sense of place and makes history almost palpable. The other day I had a similar now and then experience brought on by a couple of songs.

Fun Deficit is essentially Mike Morrissey who is from both upstate New York and Oregon at the same time (magic). He sings about his friend Joe who has gone off to DC, present day DC. His friend works for the Department of Energy and plays tennis. H Street is now the cool place to live. Joe is in love and probably buys his music off of iTunes and doesn’t even know where the nearest record store is. There is no Vinyl Ink, Go! or Yesterday & Today any more to follow girls around to see what kind of records they buys. Today you download records and then blog about them on Tumblr so your friends/strangers can like/re-blog it.

What am I trying to say? I guess that things change, and you tend to forget about the past until a song or photo jars your memory. Fun Deficit’s Joe At Work did just that. The song is sweet vignette of the life of a friend in another town. The simple guitar and meandering melody bring to mind another song about DC written roughly ten years ago by the Sprites.

mp3: Fun Deficit – Joe At Work

mp3: The Sprites – Following Her Around

Seapony On the Hi-Fi

June 1, 2011 at 9:08 pm | Posted in Albums, Music, Previews, Seattle | Leave a comment
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Photo snagged from Seattle Weekly

The first thing I noticed about Seapony‘s debut album besides the slightly chillwave cover image was the layout of the CD. It looks like it came from the Sarah Records catalog circa 1992. The colors, fonts and inner sleeve photo reminded me of Blueboy‘s If Wishes Were Horses. The cover does not lie, Seapony’s sound is entirely reminiscent of the Sarah Records catalog as well.

Singer Jen Weidl has a sweetness to her voice that is offset by her disaffected delivery. This makes the songs sound innocent and jaded at the same time. Lead guitarist and songwriter Danny Rowland has created clean and simple pallets of jangling and ringing tones for his songs. Listening to the record on head phones accents the quietness of it, making it pass by without an impression and that nearly happened to me. My mind changed after putting it on the old hi-fi stereo with some descent speakers. Playing on the old hi-fi, the songs seem to crackle from the speakers, blossoming into full foliage. It makes me wonder how many of us actually listen to albums on a descent stereo any more instead of crappy headphones? Sometimes it makes all the difference in ‘getting’ and appreciating a record. Go With Me is a subtle understated record that doesn’t demand your attention but sort of nestles up beside you when you’re not looking, like that ordinary everyday aquaintance that you one day realize is an interesting and cool person.


mp3: Seapony – Dreaming

mp3: Seapony – Blue Star

Both songs from Seapony’s album Go With Me. Order a copy for your home hi-fi today from Hardly Art.

Seapony have played around town quite a lot since their debut late last year, but they have recently gone the way that Echo and the Bunny did way back and retired their drum machine and added a human drummer to their line up so Thursday’s record release gig at Vera Project is cause to see them (again). If you need more cause to go to Thursday’s show, here’s one: 14 Iced Bears!  The very same C-86 angular janglers are back and Seattle is one of the few stops on their short West Coast tour.  The band’s collection of singles and BBC sessions compiled on Slumberland’s In the Beginning along with the band’s self-titled debut are some of the best under-heard stuff from that era. I’m hoping that they skip much of their second album Borderline as it doesn’t hit quite the sweat spot as their earlier material.

mp3: 14 Iced Bears – Inside

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